"These principles can be used as a guideline or gentleman’s agreement, and can be adopted by many partners," the group states on its website. "They will describe responsibilities and concrete steps public and private partners can take to counter the illegal use of Internet."

Setting aside the fact that there is no clear-cut, universal agreement about who is a terrorist or what defines terrorist content, CleanIT has continued to move forward. It is led by But Klaasen, the programme manager of the office of the Dutch national coordinator for counterterrorism and security.

Since November 2011, CleanIT has published intermediary documents on its website—the most recent one was released in May 2012. However, a Brussels-based Internet freedom organization, European Digital Rights, has recently published a leaked draft document from CleanIT, dated August 28, 2012.

An anti-terrorist browser? Huh?

The new 23-page document (PDF) includes many disturbing provisions, some of which are labeled as "recommendations," and others as "to be discussed." Many of those in the latter category are questionable at best, and at worst are ridiculous and likely verge on illegal. They include:

"Knowingly providing hyperlinks on websites to terrorist content must be defined by law as illegal just like the terrorist content itself"

"Governments must disseminate lists of illegal, terrorist websites"

"The Council Regulation (EC) No 881/2002 of 27 May 2002 (art 1.2) should be explained that providing Internet services is included in providing economics instruments to Al Qaeda (and other terrorist persons and organisations designated by the EU) and therefore an illegal act"

"On Voice over IP services it must be possible to flag users for terrorist activity."

"Internet companies must allow only real, common names."

"Social media companies must allow only real pictures of users."

"At the European level a browser or operating system based reporting button must be developed."

"Governments will start drafting legislation that will make offering... a system [to monitor Internet activity] to Internet users obligatory for browser or operating systems...as a condition of selling their products in this country or the European Union."

Many tech and legal scholars have been significantly alarmed by what has been proposed in this draft document.

"These are so out of scope," said Arthur van der Wees, an IT lawyer in Amsterdam, in an interview with Ars. "It is not even something we have to discuss. It’s clearly not legal. You don’t have to have studied law to see this."

Moreover, he pointed out, many of these proposed changes would be in direct violation of existing European law. That’s particularly striking especially in the Netherlands, which earlier this year became Europe’s first (and the world’s second) nation to enshrine the concept of net neutrality into law.

"Very rough ideas"

Klaasen, CleanIT’s leader, said that he understands the hysteria surrounding this newly released draft—however, he emphasized that the document was just that, an in-progress draft.

"I do fully understand that the publishing of the document led to misunderstandings," he told Ars. "If we publish like this, it will scare people—that’s the reason that we didn’t publish it. It’s food for thought. We do realize these are very rough ideas."

He said that this draft represents less than half of a five-step process that has resulted in the official draft documents that the group has released so far. This document is only what has come out of discussions from working groups, but has not yet been discussed by all 30-40 participants in attendance. (The group recently rescheduled its September London meeting for Utrecht, the Netherlands—a cheaper alternative—and is slated to convene in Vienna in November.)

"You can compare [this situation] to taking pictures of what someone buys for dinner with how a dinner tastes—you don’t have the complete picture," he added.

Klaasen told Ars that he is aware of the concerns that CleanIT’s proposals are conflicting with EU law.

"We have a trusted environment where everybody can speak freely," he said. "This came from the group. We don’t track who came with what idea. This is what came up. We just try to have an open and constructive dialogue. I’m confident that everything that will affect our online freedom will never pass through. I’m very confident about that."

The Dutch official called his group the most open counterterrorism project anywhere in the world, saying that publishing intermediate, official drafts was going above and beyond what normally takes place.

"I don’t see the problem [with that approach,]" he added. "I have no problem with publishing everything we do afterwards. I’m open for debate, but I’m not convinced that everything should be fully transparent 24/7."

More than anything, Klaasen said he was shocked that European Digital Rights did not respect basic instructions.

Overbroad policy

Joe McNamee, the head of European Digital Rights, wrote on his organization’s website that the draft "shows just how far internal discussions in that initiative have drifted away from its publicly stated aims, as well as the most fundamental legal rules that underpin European democracy and the rule of law."

In an interview late Monday night, McNamee told Ars that the document had been leaked to him by a participant who wanted to show how some participants had concerns, but were afraid to express them, lest they be seen as soft on terrorism.

"Governments and the [European Commission] and whoever trying to privatize the rule of law through the terms of service is illegal under the most basic principles of international law, it’s unpredictable for the citizen, and it’s inevitably going to lead to perfectly legal content being deleted," he added. "It’s simply not the appropriate method of dealing with illegal or unwelcome content online. Full stop."

Other activists outside Europe have started to take notice as well. Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, described the leaked draft as "kinda weird."

"We should start to freak out, but in a sort of preliminary way," he said.

If these provisions do actually come to pass—admittedly a long shot at this stage—one of the major problems with such a plan is how to distinguish what is and isn’t accepted speech in the European Union and when it crosses over to being "terrorist content."

"This document seems to present terrorist content as potentially any information produced by anyone associated with a terrorist group," he said, recalling the Irish Republican Army, often referred to as a domestic European terrorist organization.

"When the IRA was conducting terrorist attacks, I never heard anyone say that TV wouldn't show interviews with IRA members or that IRA members couldn't publish books or anything like that," he said. "There were restrictions on funding the IRA because they were using terrorism. But I never heard people suggest that people needed to be protected from the opinions or advocacy of IRA members, or that IRA was not entitled to freedom of speech."

"I have to concede that this is exactly the kind of government action that I had assumed people would not have called for or accepted," he wrote.

"Apparently, I was just not familiar enough with my Troubles history. I find this action shocking from a US legal point of view, but it might show a historical European precedent for an extremely broad ban on publishing the speech of members of terrorist organizations (even when their speech is on political topics and not advocating violence)."

"It seems pretty odd that the ban applied only to the voice and image of the IRA members themselves, and not to their words—so the British audiences still ended up learning the IRA's opinions, from actors. At this distance from the Troubles, that feels somewhat surreal."

Promoted Comments

"When the IRA was conducting terrorist attacks, I never heard anyone say that TV wouldn't show interviews with IRA members or that IRA members couldn't publish books or anything like that," he said. "There were restrictions on funding the IRA because they were using terrorism. But I never heard people suggest that people needed to be protected from the opinions or advocacy of IRA members, or that IRA was not entitled to freedom of speech."

AHEM! This was before my time, so others can fill in better, but as a UK person, I clearly recall there were indeed bans on allowing or interviewing IRA members to speak on TV or radio. TV couldn't show interviews with IRA members. To protect the public from hearing the voice of a IRA member, sometimes quotes from the IRA had to be re-voiced using a paid BBC actor. Even if they were just talking about eating sausages in jail (the horror!).

I should say that the IRA killed a good few people, both british and irish, and a member of the Royal family, and almost blew up Margret Thatcher, idol of the American Right, She was unhurt but one of her ministers died in the blast. Americans talk about bombing the funders of terrorism but I don't see them sending their drones over Chicago and New York.

180 posts | registered Nov 5, 2009

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

I think the point is that the Internet (as a communication and media platform) is basically a dual use device. The implications may be nasty, but be assured that no government that sees control and policing as part of the job description can just look at something like that as something everyone can use for whatever he will want to use it for. We have governments and police for a reason and everyone who thinks that we don't need them is throwing out a major part of civilisation.

It's just part of their job to come up with such ideas. It's our job to point out what's wrong with what's wrong with that. There are quite a few conflicting motives at work here and if you think that the government's and those of decent people are the only ones you're missing a thing or two.

One problem is that the net and everything in and around it is developing far too fast to have us adapt to it naturally. We will have to accept some risks in one way or another or we will be just stampeded while still sitting there arguing.

If these provisions do actually come to pass—admittedly a long shot at this stage—one of the major problems with such a plan is how to distinguish what is and isn’t accepted speech in the European Union and when it crosses over to being "terrorist content."

Ya think? One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. Policy like this starts to become dangerous when all it takes is to be of an opinion opposite the current party in power to fall afoul of censorship laws.

Tsk...If this even goes up for vote I'll be out protesting (what else can you do?). Either shoot it down or the country should leave the EU. (or I sure hope Switzerland will accept my citizenship application)

These proposals actually sound so ridiculous I don't even want to believe that some people would actually consider them.

Why try being subtle with Muzzi-wog provocateurs ... WWW or otherwise? Just pick a few bunches of AK47 toting towelheads in their desert shiitwholes and turn them into glowing puddles of radioactive green glass. Then repeat as needed. Western culture saved itself once, by similar methods and seems about time for a modern reprise.

Also, am i the only one that sees an irony in "Gentlemen's Agreement' for 'terrorist' content?

I did have a good laugh at this.

On a serious note. This shows how out-of-touch these people are with the fundamental concepts of the internet. There are a lot of times I liked to be tracked. For example, when Google can customize my search parameters based on past visits and what others in my Circles have liked. And I have found targeted advertisements useful once in a while.

But things like this blow me over the edge. I'm fine to do every possible thing to ensure they can't track me, and I can make damn sure they can't. I'll teach my kids how to stay anonymous from day one, so not even a single fingerprint of their lives can be found. And I'll tell them to teach their friends to do the same. We'll raise a generation of kids that have a deep understanding of how internet communications work, and how to subvert the system!

"When the IRA was conducting terrorist attacks, I never heard anyone say that TV wouldn't show interviews with IRA members or that IRA members couldn't publish books or anything like that," he said. "There were restrictions on funding the IRA because they were using terrorism. But I never heard people suggest that people needed to be protected from the opinions or advocacy of IRA members, or that IRA was not entitled to freedom of speech."

AHEM! This was before my time, so others can fill in better, but as a UK person, I clearly recall there were indeed bans on allowing or interviewing IRA members to speak on TV or radio. TV couldn't show interviews with IRA members. To protect the public from hearing the voice of a IRA member, sometimes quotes from the IRA had to be re-voiced using a paid BBC actor. Even if they were just talking about eating sausages in jail (the horror!).

I should say that the IRA killed a good few people, both british and irish, and a member of the Royal family, and almost blew up Margret Thatcher, idol of the American Right, She was unhurt but one of her ministers died in the blast. Americans talk about bombing the funders of terrorism but I don't see them sending their drones over Chicago and New York.

Why try being subtle with Muzzi-wog provocateurs ... WWW or otherwise? Just pick a few bunches of AK47 toting towelheads in their desert shiitwholes and turn them into glowing puddles of radioactive green glass. Then repeat as needed. Western culture saved itself once, by similar methods and seems about time for a modern reprise.

He didn't expect it? Really? Where has this guy been for the last decade? Does he even own a computer capable of connecting to the internet? There's quite a few examples of stories on it involving leaked documents, photos, video...Also, to answer his question why he can't trust people; well, we, the people, don't necessarily trust him (or gov't in general). I, for one, really like to know what my gov't is up to, rather than just assuming they're always doing the "right thing".

Quote:

In an interview late Monday night, McNamee told Ars that the document had been leaked to him by a participant who wanted to show how some participants had concerns, but were afraid to express them, lest they be seen as soft on terrorism.

This irritates the heck out of me. How dare someone question gov't limiting of rights, else they be labeled as 'soft on terrorism'?!?! This is just as ridiculous as immediately labeling someone as a filthy, tree-hugging, free-market hating communist when they suggest maybe we have a few pollution regulations so as to prevent Sly Sludge from dumping whatever he wants into the river. I wish/hope that our elected/appointed gov't officials would have a little more backbone and not be so afraid of name-calling. Of course, wish in one hand and @#$! in the other...

The Muzzi-wogs have been butchering since "Zbig" kept the Russkis from erasing a bunch in Afganland. Fool! What a mistake by Jimbo Carters hatchetman just to spite Russias eastern European **wristslapping**! Had the Russkis killed a million or two MWs the point would have been made ... Western culture will take-no-crap from towelheads but no ... no ... now the price has gone up.

Remember palsy Western Christian (bloody handed indeed!!) culture had to butcher the Muzzi-wogs from the gates of Vienna in the 18-th Century. Now Western values and liberty comes at a higher cost as America allowed MWs to expand & become wealthy as a cold war buffer against the Russ/Chi.coms.

Really? THOSE ideas are food for thought? So that's how their brains work then? Because that's pretty scary, and it means we need to pay a LOT more attention on what EU is trying to do with the Internet.

Seth Schoen might not have heard of it, but Sinn Fein (the political party associated with the IRA) was banned in the UK in 1988. It was illegal to carry Gerry Adams' voice on the air, or interview any other Sinn Fein member. Weirdly, they could broadcast an actor reading Adams's words.

I'm most disgusted, by the way, that these creepy people were given more money than I've had over the last two decades to produce these "recommendations". Europeans should demand every penny of that money back.

One might as well call water-boarding an "illegal use of water" and addressing the real issue of whether torture is legal. In the same way making use of he internet illegal is crazy, it is already illegal to kill people or to recruit people to kill people, why do specific methods of recruiting people need to be made illegal.

This is what you get when people who don't understand something are tasked with overseeing it.

I really wish the OMGTERRARIST government meme would die off. We should have just written "MURICA, MOTHERFUCKERS!" in large craters across the mountains where they're hiding, and called it a day.

If they did it again, write "OK, now you're just being an ass" in more craters.

After that, just hand it over to a Starbucks/McDonald's/Wal-Mart coalition. "OK, if you can get these crazy fucker to piss off, we'll give you tax breaks on any installations in Afghanistan." 2 weeks later the area would be pacified and largely indistinguishable from most of the US.

I really don't know what you can reply to this. The only thing that immediately comes to my mind is slapping this guy, then shooting him.

All those FPSes in my youth and the rock music I listen to failed to make me violent or run amok. But the existence of such idiots combined with the fact that they get an assload of money and have actual power makes me upset.

The Muzzi-wogs have been butchering since "Zbig" kept the Russkis from erasing a bunch in Afganland. Fool! What a mistake by Jimbo Carters hatchetman just to spite Russias eastern European **wristslapping**! Had the Russkis killed a million or two MWs the point would have been made ... Western culture will take-no-crap from towelheads but no ... no ... now the price has gone up.

Remember palsy Western Christian (bloody handed indeed!!) culture had to butcher the Muzzi-wogs from the gates of Vienna in the 18-th Century. Now Western values and liberty comes at a higher cost as America allowed MWs to expand & become wealthy as a cold war buffer against the Russ/Chi.coms.

"Muzzi-wogs" sound like tiny adorable elf people who live among the buttercups and help Harry Potter in his fight against Voldemort.

"Governments will start drafting legislation that will make offering... a system [to monitor Internet activity] to Internet users obligatory for browser or operating systems...as a condition of selling their products in this country or the European Union."

I don't see any problem with this. I want government to spy all my internet activity. I love my government. They could never do anything that would hurt me. But if I'd do something even remotely illegal, I'd deserve to be locked to prison for undetermined time period. I need to be guided and my words should be censored. I'd also feel much more comfortable if someone would listen all my phone conversations and police would make random arrests on streets, just to keep everyone on their toes. I have no objections to any of these plans to strip me from my basic rights, government knows the best. And it's for everyones good, it will make all of us feel safer.

Baloney."Terrorist Sites" aren't going anywhere.They are the the most useful thing to happen to the surveillance crew since the invention of the satellite.

And the real terrorists no doubt already know this.

But hey, the "gentleman’s crackdown" (or whatever this is) almost fooled me into thinking they were real centers of resistance rather than honeypots to catch dumb kids who want to blow stuff up out of cultural and sexual frustration....So it must be working!

Seth Schoen might not have heard of it, but Sinn Fein (the political party associated with the IRA) was banned in the UK in 1988. It was illegal to carry Gerry Adams' voice on the air, or interview any other Sinn Fein member. Weirdly, they could broadcast an actor reading Adams's words.

True, but that was Maggie Thatcher's doing. Pretty much everyone on BOTH islands hates her guts.

I'll teach my kids how to stay anonymous from day one, so not even a single fingerprint of their lives can be found. And I'll tell them to teach their friends to do the same. We'll raise a generation of kids that have a deep understanding of how internet communications work, and how to subvert the system!

If only it was that simple. Your kids, like everybody else's, don't give a shit. They'll (demonstrably) hand over their passwords for a chocolate bar - there's no chance they'll give a shit about something with no immediate consequences.

(And yes, I know you were being tongue-in-cheek, I just wish the world wasn't quite as short-sighted as it really is )

True, but that was Maggie Thatcher's doing. Pretty much everyone on BOTH islands hates her guts.

I have never heard a single good thing about Margaret Thatcher, and my vague memories of the early 80's tell me she was pretty much universally hated (from what I saw on Australian TV, which didn't have a partisan interest in her).

How did she get re-elected? It's not like she was a one-term Prime Minister. Ronald Reagan might have been a narrow-minded, flaky baffoon, but at least he was liked in his own country. How the hell did Thatcher stay in power so long when everything she did was so reviled?

True, but that was Maggie Thatcher's doing. Pretty much everyone on BOTH islands hates her guts.

I have never heard a single good thing about Margaret Thatcher, and my vague memories of the early 80's tell me she was pretty much universally hated (from what I saw on Australian TV, which didn't have a partisan interest in her).

How did she get re-elected? It's not like she was a one-term Prime Minister. Ronald Reagan might have been a narrow-minded, flaky baffoon, but at least he was liked in his own country. How the hell did Thatcher stay in power so long when everything she did was so reviled?

Thatcher is fiercely anti-socialism and vehemently attacked the unions, so she is gonna be hated by all the socialist countries. In Hong Kong and China, however, Thatcher has a good reputation. The opinion is that she saved Britain from economic collapse, to which I sort of agree. Through her efforts, Britain slowed its gradual decay by 10 to 20 years.

Seth Schoen's (so called expert!) lack of knowledge about the IRA campaign and how they were banned from appearing on TV in the 70's is shockingly ignorant. Mind you, Cyrus Farivar, "Senior Business EDITOR", you should also hang your head in shame for not checking the facts, after all isn't that what editors are supposed to do, or is that all terribly pre iPhone 5 ;-)

"You can compare [this situation] to taking pictures of what someone buys for dinner with how a dinner tastes—you don’t have the complete picture," he added.

When someone enters a restaurant kitchen with horse excrement you ban that person from getting anywhere near food again. There is absolutely no need for the complete picture: People who make such suggestions, even jokingly, should be kept far away from any decision makers.